How beautiful is the Mandarin duck?

          Generally, ducks are not particularly attractive. How-ever, the Mandarin ducks are strikingly beautiful. One would even wonder if an artist had accidentally dropped his palette over the bird!

           The males have a bushy brown crest and cheek ruffs, large white eye patches, dark neck and back with black and white markings, and greenish flanks. Females, on the other hand, are mainly grey-brown in colour.

          Mandarin ducks are 41-49 centimetres long with a wingspan of 65 to 75 centimetres. Their population was high in East Asia once. However, large-scale exports and the destruction of forest habitat have reduced their population in eastern Russia and China to below 1,000 pairs. These ducks are closely related to the wood ducks of North America. They love wooded watercourses as they spend much of their time perching and nesting in trees. They feed at dawn and dusk.

Picture Credit : Google